DWP Shirebrook Jobcentre closure and mobile service, Digi Mart USA News (Derbyshire, England): The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has sparked anger in the Midlands after a Derbyshire Jobcentre closed and its staff and services were transferred to Mansfield. Campaigners have criticized what they describe as the stripping away of services intended to help people.
Colin Hampton, coordinator of the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centres (DUWC), said the explanation was “utter nonsense.” He said it had taken the DWP more than two years to offer this explanation, and that the closure was widely recognized as a cost-cutting measure for the department.
Hampton said the DWP had previously shut Jobcentres in Eckington, Dronfield, Clay Cross and Bolsover over the past 20 years. He said the costs saved by the DWP were passed on to people who could least afford them, as Jobcentre users were paying travel costs to attend appointments in Mansfield.
Hampton, who has worked at the DUWC for 40 years, said using a van could make sense in rural areas with no alternative, but not in a conurbation such as Shirebrook. He said the van would likely be withdrawn if no one used it, and that the DWP intended to move the van to the Market Place, which he said fit a pattern of withdrawing local services.
Hampton also linked the closure to calls from some politicians to cut the welfare budget, saying this was what such cuts meant in practice. He said that feeling left behind was one thing, but having services that might help people catch up stripped away was another.
A DWP spokesperson said the department was consolidating its estate to be smaller, more effective and to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer. The spokesperson said the Jobcentre had been closed to the public for some time and that customers had already been receiving employment support from Mansfield Jobcentre, so there would be no impact on customers or the support available to them.
To maintain a presence in the town, the spokesperson said, a mobile Jobcentre based at Shirebrook Leisure Centre continues to extend the department’s visible reach in the local community.
